I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. During my SLC I will be leading a conference and have prepared examples from my portfolio that demonstrate learning I have undertaken this school year.
Month: March 2016
Destination Growth Mindset
Growth Mindset was introduced to us at the beginning of the year. At first I’m pretty sure everybody thought it was some kind of joke. Now looking back on it I realize how important it is to think and act with a growth mindset. I have had a pretty fixed mindset in a lot of scenarios in my life and it would have benefited my greatly to have opened up my mind and thought with a growth mindset.
Recently we got the amazing opportunity to participate in Destination Imagination. It was an extremely rewarding process and challenge. My group and I definitely were not to keen about working and presenting our challenge. I had it fixed in my head from all of the negative thoughts around me that this would not enjoyable. Going into this project with a mindset like that really brought my group and I down.
To start off we had some serious procrastination issues. For example we waited until the night before to fully create our structure and were even fixing and adjusting it on the day of the challenge. Also none of us really had any hope in our group because we were comparing ourselves to others. That is something that I should never do again. We had it fixed in our minds that we would not do well in this project.
When the day of the challenge got closer to I started to realize how much I wanted to do well in this and how much time we had wasted. I turned my whole perspective on this project around and pushed myself and my group to work our hardest on the last few days of work. If I had gone into the project with the attitude I had during the last few days then I believe we could have done a lot better then we did.
In the end we came out getting third place in our challenge, but we did a lot better then I ever expected we would going into that project. Luckily we get the opportunity to try again at a higher levelled competition and I know that for next time I will strive to push myself and my group to do the best we can and to always find a positive outcome in it all.
Death by Presentaion
Presenting is something that I have always dreaded doing. Every single time the words presentation or speaking come out of a teachers mouth I get all anxious and nervous. Although every time I know that once I am up there and I am in the flow of things everything will be fine. I still struggle with some aspects of presenting.
When looking back onto last year and the speaking presentations I did I feel I have really grown and developed my presenting skills. I feel that some key aspects as to why I feel more comfortable presenting today is because of PLP class. We have all been together for a year and a half now and I know the majority of the class very well. Everybody is comfortable in front of each other and I feel a lot more confident heading into presentations knowing that I will have the support of my classmates and friends.
In my opinion poetry was a really entertaining and engaging thing to learn about. We got the opportunity to work in groups of our choice and focus on one category of poems. Our group chose death, which was surprisingly my suggestion. We then went on to find, analyze, and memorize poems for a final presentation. Going into this presentation I was extremely nervous that I would mess up the flow of the poem or forget a line and stumble along. Although just like every time I get up to the front of the class room to present I am completely fine. I really need to get it in my head before a presentation that I will be fine instead of after.
While presenting I believe I have improved on making eye contact and using an appropriate tone when speaking about my work. For example when I was reading out my poem I made sure to look all around the room and make eye contact with everyone. Also I used an appropriate tone when reading the poem, it was understandable, yet powerful considering my topic was death. Presenting I believe will always be something I am scared about, but I know that one day I will be truly proud of what I have said in front of my audience.
Tuesday Night Blog Post
Whenever I have something I need to say I always go to writing to use as a tool to speak my mind. Writing has been a passion of mine since I was in elementary school. I remember we would be assigned short stories, (my favourite was one about the moon) 
to do and most people would be done in a matter of one or two work periods, but I would take my time and write down as much as possible. Although most of the time my grammar wasn’t very good, but hey, I was only 10! I even kept all my writing from elementary school so I could see how far I have come.
Throughout the beginning of the year we have been working on probably one of the most awful things any high school student dreads to do. That’s right, essays. Okay some essays are definitely better then others. For example I actually love writing narrative essays, but synthesis essays, that’s a whole other story.
When writing I tend to let my mind wander into the most bizarre places and sometimes the stories I write are quite weird. Essays have helped me to keep my writing structured and making sense.
The narrative essay was one of the last essays we wrote in class and it is definitely my best work yet. I spent a lot of time and effort on that one essay and it really payed off. It is the piece of work that I am definitely most proud of so far this year.
When writing this essay I went through a lot of revision. For example I probably rewrote the intro 10 times before I got one that I was pleased with. Also I was really proud how I ended my essay off in a similar way how I started it to tie it all together because normally my endings to writing pieces are never my strong point. Although I am working my hardest to try and improve every detail about my writing techniques.